Moving to Dubai

[Jolie]

My main long-term client has agreed that I can service my contract from Dubai.

I have a UK Ltd and rented office space. I intend to close these and either start a company, or use one of the local umbrella companies.

I will be selling up and moving permanently. I live alone, don't intend to return to the UK to live and will have no property or other financial ties that could attract tax.

I would be interested to hear views from others who have done this / considering doing this and maybe help others along the way.

[Old Greg]

My main long-term client has agreed that I can service my contract from Dubai.

I have a UK Ltd and rented office space. I intend to close these and either start a company, or use one of the local umbrella companies.

I will be selling up and moving permanently. I live alone, don't intend to return to the UK to live and will have no property or other financial ties that could attract tax.

I would be interested to hear views from others who have done this / considering doing this and maybe help others along the way.

Another job for...


Sue@ipaye

Give her a call.

[jbond007]

My main long-term client has agreed that I can service my contract from Dubai.

I have a UK Ltd and rented office space. I intend to close these and either start a company, or use one of the local umbrella companies.

I will be selling up and moving permanently. I live alone, don't intend to return to the UK to live and will have no property or other financial ties that could attract tax.

I would be interested to hear views from others who have done this / considering doing this and maybe help others along the way.

What nationality are you ? You need a visa to live in Dubai, employment visa being the most common one. For that, you need to be employed by someone in Dubai.

Other types of visa are dependent visa, but you said you live alone, I interpret that as being single so couldn't get dependent visa

If you own a property in Dubai, you could get a visa via your property but you need to also show a minimum income from other sources as well (interest from savings, overseas property rental income, etc)

Unless ofcourse you are national of the UAE, in which case none of the above matters.

[saptastic]

My main long-term client has agreed that I can service my contract from Dubai.

I have a UK Ltd and rented office space. I intend to close these and either start a company, or use one of the local umbrella companies.

I will be selling up and moving permanently. I live alone, don't intend to return to the UK to live and will have no property or other financial ties that could attract tax.

I would be interested to hear views from others who have done this / considering doing this and maybe help others along the way.

This article may be useful https://www.contractoruk.com/oversea...ing_dubai.html

[1manshow]

It is something I considered before, but I decided not to go ahead with it due to citizenship laws.

As it stands, you can't be granted citizenship, so in essence, as soon as you are out of work (and haven't got a replacement job within a month or so), you need to leave the country. Even if you worked there 5-10 years and own a property.

There are some ways to get citizenship (e.g. marrying an emirati, investing millions into to the country and other difficult methods - 30 years residency I think is one but don't quote me on that) but not many ways - so you have to think if you want to risk investing your life in a country which won't allow you to make it home.

So I would make sure that you are confident you have a job there for a long time, decades even! Note that although the salaries are nice for expats, if you end up losing that job - other local jobs may not be at all as enticing. A lot of companies get very cheap foreign labour from the East.

There could be changes in the future, but nothings confirmed yet.

[andyg]

Have you considered the UAE free-zones?

Perhaps have a read of this wrt vias reqts

https://www.propartnergroup.com/2018...abu-dhabi-uae/

I worked in both Qatar and Dubai but had sponsorship in both cases. Dubai has become quite expensive in the last year or two. PM me if you'd like info on living in Dubai.

[Jolie]

What nationality are you ? You need a visa to live in Dubai, employment visa being the most common one. For that, you need to be employed by someone in Dubai.

I am British and yes I am aware of the visa requirements. You don't have to be employed by someone in Dubai, you can start your own company and get a 10 year residency visa, alternatively you can use one of the free zone umbrella companies, part of the contract with them is that they sort out the visa.

Other types of visa are dependent visa, but you said you live alone, I interpret that as being single so couldn't get dependent visa

Yes single and not interested in marrying an Emirati, well not yet anyway!

If you own a property in Dubai, you could get a visa via your property but you need to also show a minimum income from other sources as well (interest from savings, overseas property rental income, etc)

Yes I do intend to purchase property, anything over 1 million Dirhams will get you a 2 year visa. You only need to show a small amount of income, I can provide evidence of that from my company, even if the contract ends and I have other interests and investments.

[Jolie]

This article may be useful https://www.contractoruk.com/oversea...ing_dubai.html

Thank you for the link ;-)

[Jolie]

It is something I considered before, but I decided not to go ahead with it due to citizenship laws.

As it stands, you can't be granted citizenship, so in essence, as soon as you are out of work (and haven't got a replacement job within a month or so), you need to leave the country. Even if you worked there 5-10 years and own a property.

There are some ways to get citizenship (e.g. marrying an emirati, investing millions into to the country and other difficult methods - 30 years residency I think is one but don't quote me on that) but not many ways - so you have to think if you want to risk investing your life in a country which won't allow you to make it home.

So I would make sure that you are confident you have a job there for a long time, decades even! Note that although the salaries are nice for expats, if you end up losing that job - other local jobs may not be at all as enticing. A lot of companies get very cheap foreign labour from the East.

There could be changes in the future, but nothings confirmed yet.

Thank you for pointing this out. I spend a lot of time in Dubai and I know from other friends who have married Emirati's that getting citizenship is very difficult, even if you have been married for more than the required time frame.

I am purchasing property as an investment, which will give me investment visa options. Even if I cannot stay there for whatever reason, I will either rent out the properties and return back to the UK, or my preferred option will be to travel, with Dubai being my base.

So I understand the pitfalls, but they seem happy with me entering frequently, the nice immigration guys even added my UK passport to the e-gates, so as long as I don't stay longer than 30 days at a time, they just let me come and go as I please.

[Jolie]

Perhaps have a read of this wrt vias reqts

https://www.propartnergroup.com/2018...abu-dhabi-uae/

I worked in both Qatar and Dubai but had sponsorship in both cases. Dubai has become quite expensive in the last year or two. PM me if you'd like info on living in Dubai.

Yes whether I start my own company or use an umbrella, it will be in one of the free zones.

Thanks for the link.

I am pretty clued up in what is required to live in Dubai, I do spend a lot of time there and it just makes more sense to make the move.